Hollywood meets Bollywood, with a side of Nollywood
Hollywood and Netflix are picking up on the vibrant film industries of Bollywood, Nollywood and Hong Kong by creating cross-cultural film productions to leverage the star power of overseas actors. See Jackie Chan, John Cusack and Adrien Brody in the Chinese-produced ‘Dragon Blade’ or Bollywood stars in a remake of Lionsgate’s ‘Warriors.’ In-flight entertainment suppliers […]
Hollywood and Netflix are picking up on the vibrant film industries of Bollywood, Nollywood and Hong Kong by creating cross-cultural film productions to leverage the star power of overseas actors. See Jackie Chan, John Cusack and Adrien Brody in the Chinese-produced ‘Dragon Blade’ or Bollywood stars in a remake of Lionsgate’s ‘Warriors.’ In-flight entertainment suppliers Eros International and Emphasis Video Entertainment comment on why it’s time to take note of the trend.
Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar may not be household names in the US, but the Bollywood A-listers are among the world’s highest paid actors – ahead of Mark Wahlberg, Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio – thanks to a flourishing domestic film industry in India.
International blockbusters ‘Jurassic World,’ ‘Furious 7’ and ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ made huge waves at the box office in China, Australia and South Korea this year; but in India, they accounted for less than 10 percent of ticket sales, not holding a candle to ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan,’ ‘Tanu Weds Manu Returns,’ ‘Welcome Back’ or ‘Dil Dhadakne Do,’ which topped the Bollywood box office.
Perhaps it’s because Indians already have so many domestic films to choose from. In 2013, Bollywood produced 1,602 films, more than triple the number by Hollywood. With a huge Indian diaspora abroad, especially in Europe and North America, Bollywood films have followed their viewers, expanding its export market with digital video-on-demand platforms driving the movement.
“Apart from regular screenings at major international film festivals, the overseas market contributes a sizeable chunk to Bollywood’s box office collections,” says Prashant Gaonkar, vice-president, Inflight Entertainment of the Mumbai-based production and distribution company, Eros International. “Our digital platform Eros Now is a witness to this huge demand.”
Hollywood superheroes, dinosaurs and sports cars didn’t make the cut at the Bollywood box office, but there was one Hollywood-backed flick that reached the top 10. Brothers, the Hindi remake of Lionsgate’s 2011 flop ‘Warrior,’ starring Akshay Kumar and Sidharth Malhotra as mixed martial arts fighters in the place of Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton, had the second biggest opening in India this year.
Even with its Hollywood affiliation, ‘Brothers’ is unlikely to make it mainstream in North America. But overseas movie stars are appearing on North American big screens in other ways: Amitabh Bachchan had a cameo in ‘The Great Gatsby’ and Fan Bingbing, the world’s fourth highest-paid actress ahead of Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie and Reese Witherspoon, played the teleporting mutant, Blink, in ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past.’
These cross-cultural film industry intersections, such as the Chinese production, Dragon Blade featuring Jackie Chan, John Cusack and Adrien Brody, are setting the stage for more Hollywood co-productions and joint ventures to come: Relativity Media (‘Fast and Furious,’ ‘Pitch Perfect’) and B4U (‘Welcome Back, Hero’), and the recently announced partnership between Warner Brothers and China Media Capital.
“The majority of airlines give priority to big-budget productions with an A-list cast and notable box office,” says Grace Lau, director, Acquisition and Distribution at the Hong-Kong based in-flight entertainment distributor, Emphasis Video Entertainment. “They prefer to license movies that are not only popular in their home territory but are recognised internationally.”
And keep an eye out on Nollywood, the emerging film industry of Nigeria. It has surpassed Hollywood as the second largest film industry in the world and will be streaming its way to North American audiences through Netflix who will exclusively distribute the film ‘October 1,’ which picked up the award for Best Nigerian Film at the African Movie Academy Awards and recently released ‘Beasts of No Nation,’ based on a novel by Nigerian author Uzodinma Iweala starring British-actor Idris Elba.
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